Flamingos have become the symbol of resistance against the Kushner resort, but the real target is a government offering the Albanian coast as a gift to power
It’s a great shame when a country’s prime minister, faced with thousands of citizens in the streets and warnings about damage to a protected ecosystem, responds with the almost feudal certainty of a man who believes an election victory is a blank check to dispose of the coast, nature, and the dignity of the state. Edi Rama is speaking today in exactly this way about a planned luxury resort on the Albanian coast, a project tied to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and his investment network. In his tone one hears the old transitional melody of the Balkans, the promise of modernization that always demands a sacrifice — and the sacrifice is invariably the land, the sea, public space, and ultimately the people themselves, who are told that those in power know better what development means.
The project is planned in a sensitive area near Vjosa-Narta, a protected wetland and one of the most valuable natural areas on the southern Adriatic. Flamingos live there, seal habitats are also mentioned, and sea turtles have nesting sites there. It’s no surprise that the flamingo has become the symbol of resistance. Protesters in Tirana and along the coast are carrying inflatable pink birds and banners proclaiming a “Flamingo Revolution.”
According to available information, this is a project worth around 1.4 billion euros, with an additional plan for the nearby island of Sazan, while Rama describes the total value of the related investments as amounting to up to 5 billion euros. Kushner’s company Affinity Partners is linked to the development of these plans, and Ivanka Trump also appears in the story, having previously visited Albania by boat together with Kushner. Rama describes them as “modest, good, and pleasant people.” That detail sounds almost grotesque set against the fact that, at the same time, thousands are rising up against the project, that the site was fenced off with barbed wire, that protesters clashed with private security, and that the prime minister is promising the work will continue even though an environmental impact assessment hasn’t even been carried out yet!
Rama later admitted that putting up the fence was a bad idea, but he hasn’t budged an inch from the logic of the project itself. He says the investors will soon “amaze the public,” that parts of the resort might open by the end of the decade, and that Albania will make “a contribution to Europe.” True to political form, he also adds that he was “elected to carry out such things.”
That statement contains the entire pathology of post-communist, peripheral-capitalist governance, and Albania is by no means the only example of it. A mandate turns into a license to hand over the most valuable parts of the country to those who arrive with money, ideally also with a resounding surname and access to American power. The people who protest are treated as an obstacle, as a group opposed to progress, as noise beneath the windows of the prime minister’s office.
There are many details in this story that, in a different context, would seem almost literary. Rama is a former basketball player and visual artist, a man who cultivates the image of an informal modernizer — in a loose black suit, a t-shirt, and white sneakers, in an office covered with his own drawings and paintings. But beneath that aesthetic of creative urban space, a very cold political act is unfolding. Albania is being sold as a backdrop for the luxury consumption of the global elite, and protected nature is being turned into an accessory to architectural plans. Flamingos, turtles, and the wetland become details that PR managers will weave into a story about a “sustainable resort.”
Rama is playing a familiar card here. Albania needs investment, Albania wants to join the European Union, Albania must appear modern, open, and attractive.
This vocabulary has served for decades as the most reliable tool for disciplining smaller nations. In the name of modernization, projects are built that rarely give the local population any power over their own space. In the name of Europe, citizens are humiliated. In the name of development, the public good becomes a commodity, and the political elite plays the role of intermediary between domestic silence (or noise, when it erupts) and foreign capital. Here Rama acts as the administrator of an attractive plot of land on behalf of stronger circles, a man who views the coast through the lens of diplomatic benefit.
The geopolitical dimension opens up here through the symbolism of the investor. Jared Kushner is one of the most important pro-Israel figures in Trump’s family and political circle, a man who held an enormous role in Middle East policy during Trump’s first term and who is once again appearing in the shadow of renewed American power. His name on the Albanian coast therefore carries a political charge that clearly goes beyond tourism. In a country with a Muslim majority, a deep secular legacy from Enver Hoxha, and a complicated relationship to religion, the very connection to Kushner becomes a fuse.
Because it’s no secret that Albania’s government has for years cultivated a pro-Israel image, building museums dedicated to Jewish history and — rightly — recalling Albania’s honorable tradition of saving Jews during World War II. At the same time, there is visible solidarity among ordinary Albanians with Palestine, especially after the destruction of Gaza. It’s impossible to escape the fact that both Trump and Kushner are synonymous with modern Israeli aggression, and this now further intersects with the ongoing demonstrations in Albania, where banners against Israeli aggression can also be seen.
This is also a pattern already emerging in Serbia, through Trump’s business network and plans involving symbolically charged locations in Belgrade. The Balkans are being treated as a space where power can be inscribed into concrete, glass, and privatized coastline. Spheres of influence used to be drawn with military bases or radiated outward from embassies. Today they are drawn with luxury resorts, branded skyscrapers, contracts with political families, and local elites smiling for the cameras as they sign away long-term humiliation.
Such investments carry a toxic political chemistry. They buy favor, produce dependency, and give local rulers a sense of importance near the imperial table. These are small occupations, deep blows to sovereignty arriving dressed as investment prosperity. What remains for citizens is a more expensive coastline, less accessible public space, more private security, more propaganda about development, and less and less belief that the state belongs to the people who live in it.
The Albanian protesters therefore certainly deserve full support. Their resistance defends not only nature that the state fails to protect, but also the elementary right of a people to say where development ends and the sell-off begins. In the end, a regional irony also stands out, one that in the Balkans should be pointed out without hesitation. Serbs and Albanians often view one another through historical antagonism, mistrust, and political propaganda. Yet both of their elites, each in its own way, are leading toward the same scene, toward a smile before the same hegemons, toward the surrender of symbolic spaces to the same circles of power. If the flamingos near Vlora and the plans in Belgrade have anything to say to the region, it is a simple lesson — humiliation comes through different projects, but it often carries the same surname, the same capital, and the same flag in the background.
About the Author
Mario Hoffmann is an independent analyst and writer covering global economics, geopolitics, and international affairs. With a background in history and politics, he writes for EconoPuls to provide in-depth context on the stories shaping our world.
